No dialup service provided for free? “This will change.”

One man show here. I support a smallish company headquartered in the south. By many measures a very basic operation, and that’s on purpose. We only just installed wifi in the last year or so! I had just set the know-it-all corporate attorney up with her first notebook PC. She insisted she be switched to a notebook so she could take work home with her. When she asked about how to do that the conversation went like this….

Her: “now I’ll be able to do work from home with this right?”

Me: “Yes Ma’am. I’ve installed the VPN client on your PC so you’ll just double click this icon and then do ‘enable connection’ and it’ll be like you’re sitting in the office. You’ll have access to all the servers and printers.”

Her: “Ok now how fast will this be. My husband works at the college and sometimes the connection is really slow”

Me: “That’s hard to say. It’ll be MUCH slower than being in the office, but it’ll be a similar speed to your internet connection”

Her: “That doesn’t make any sense. The connection to work is my internet connection”

Me: “No, the connection to work is your VPN connection. It just piggybacks on your existing internet connection”

Her: “I don’t have an internet connection at home!”

Me: “Well this won’t work then. You’ve got to have an internet connection to be able to get to the VPN”

Her: “That’s not how it works for my husband! He just dials into the college and he has internet.”

Me: “That makes sense. Lots of colleges offered dialup back in the day, and I’m sure many still do. We don’t offer it though.”

Her: “Well I’m not paying $50 a month for internet at home! I’m just not paying for that!”

Me: “We’re not really in the position to start offering dialup access. There is neither the budget nor the expertise for it”